This invention relates to apparatus for releasably holding a line adjacent a support.
When working with flexible cables, or other lines, there often are excess lengths of line which must be stored. In the past, such lines have been stored by looping portions of the lines over rigidly fixed supports or hooks. If, as occurs in many situations, a pulling force is applied to the line thus looped over the support, the rigid support provides no release capability. The support may either bend or break, it may produce breaking of the line, or it may allow the line to be snaked therefrom which may produce a whipping action of the free end of the line producing danger to personnel or equipment in the area of the free end of the line.
An example of the situation set out above is found in logging operations in which a cable is taken in or payed out from a winch on a tractor. Auxiliary cables, or choker cables, are slidably mounted on the main cable and are retained on the main cable by a stop secured to the outer end of the main cable. Several choker cables are slidably mounted on the main cable for connecting to either a single log or a plurality of logs which may be moved by the tractor. When all of the cables are not needed, it has been a general practice to loop the unused cables over fixed supports on the tractor. When the sliding connections between the choker cables and the main cable are operating properly, there is little, if any, force applied to the choker cable attempting to draw it from the fixed supports. However, should the slide mounting bind on the main cable as often happens as the main cable is forcibly payed out, then the force tending to draw the main cable out is applied also to the choker cable. When this occurs, the choker cable may apply such force to the rigid supports either bending or breaking the same, the choker cable may break, or the cable may be withdrawn longitudinally of the choker cable whereby it snakes off the support which may produce a whipping action of its loose end which presents a danger to equipment and personnel in the area.
A general object of the present invention is to provide a novel device for releasably holding a line adjacent a support, with the device being so constructed that should a force be applied to the line in substantially any direction, which force is greater than a preselected maximum force, the cable will be released to prevent damage to the support, cable, or personnel or equipment in the area of the cable.
More specifically, an object of the invention is to provide such a novel device which includes a mounting member secured to a support, an elongate arm spaced outwardly from the support and mounted for shifting between a substantially upright holding position and a laid over release position, and biasing means releasably connecting the arm to the mounting means urging the arm in the direction of its side against which a flexible member may bear but permitting release of the arm from its holding position toward its release position upon the application of a force to the arm which is greater than the force of the biasing means. The device of the instant invention is so constructed that a force applied to the arm in almost any direction which is greater than said preselected force is operable to shift the arm to its release position.
Yet another object is to provide such a novel device which is simply and economically constructed.
A still further object is to provide such a novel device including adjustment means for varying the force which the biasing means applies to the arm to permit varying of the preselected force necessary to overcome the holding of the biasing means.
These and other objects and advantages will become more fully apparent as the following description is read in conjunction with the drawings.